Emergent Astros now have roster devoid of filler

When Astros manager A.J. Hinch looks at his team this spring, he'll see 20 of the 25 players on last year's AL Division Series roster.

Photo: Karen Warren, Staff

KISSIMMEE, Fla. - Not good enough to play for the Astros.

It was one of baseball's best jokes just three years ago. Another cheap no-namer or end-of-career hanger-on would be thrown away on the waiver wire. The instant-reply punch line: Oh, man. Did you see who got let go by the Lastros?

Now it's one of A.J. Hinch's few spring training problems in the sunshine-filled land of American League West title expectations and World Series dreams.

Thanks to surprising the heck out of baseball last season and officially moving a year ahead of their public launch schedule, the Astros in 2016 have an excess of major league talent flashing across the diamond and patiently waiting in the dugout.

Sorry, Marwin Gonzalez, Jake Marisnick and Preston Tucker. Wait for a starting-five injury, Mike Fiers. These Astros are too good for you.

"We have a lot of players that aren't starting every day, aren't playing every day - Marwin included - that should be playing every day on a lot of teams," said Tucker, who received a rare start at designated hitter in a split-squad game against Toronto on Thursday at Osceola County Stadium.

There's a joke within the revised joke. This club won 86, not 100, games last season, needed the last day of the schedule just to make the playoffs, and was only 68-69 after an initial 18-7 first-month outburst.

Some mid-March dreamers might be getting a little carried away with this whole "Stros in '16!" campaign.

Dr. Hinch's task

But what's undebatable is the fact Hinch is carrying extra roster weight in Year 2. And it's up to the increasingly impressive top-step psychologist to balance an infatuation with daily W's with the overall mental well-being of 25 young men living inside a clubhouse for six months.

"It will be a good issue if that happens, because it means we're healthy," said Hinch, discovering optimism in the potential that Gonzalez, Marisnick, Tucker and others could be killing a ton of time from April through October if everything clicks again.

Right now, there's nothing to worry about or even see. Chemistry is A+. The leftovers understand their team-related roles and accept their personal situations. And as 2015 proved, just because they're not listed on the lineup card on a Friday night doesn't mean they won't be standing under Minute Maid Park's roof by Sunday afternoon.

"Obviously, everybody wants to be a starter; everybody wants to play every day. But in a situation like this, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," said Marisnick, who also was granted a rare start Thursday due to the Astros' playing the Braves and Blue Jays all at once.

How long will the perfect "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" harmony last with these super-groovy Astros? As long as they're doing what they're clearly built to do (win), the few multimillionaires are consistently earning their oversized paychecks, and Twitter isn't wondering why Colby Rasmus is always playing instead of Marisnick.

The kids who'd be earning games played on weak teams have also barely scratched big league dirt, so it's not like the Astros have super-sized egos set for head-on collisions.

"They're not dumb," Hinch said. "They see how this team is being formed, and they understand."

But it's a rare, fascinating world for the new-era Astros to finally visit.

Three years ago, Bud Norris was their most desirable player, and Bo Porter was handing out self-made T-shirts no one in Kissimmee wanted. Now MarGo (Gonzalez's work is so admired by inspired Astros lovers that he even has a cute nickname) can lead the team with four spring-training bombs yet know it would take a catastrophe for him to be written into the lineup in permanent marker.

"It's 100 percent different. We want to show up every day," said Gonzalez, who played almost every position except Orbit's in 2015, hitting .279 with 12 homers and a .759 OPS in 120 games. "It wasn't the case a couple of years ago. … There was some days I didn't want to show up. It was miserable."

Good problems

Hinch weighs Tucker's drive, Marisnick's sharpness and Gonzalez's Swiss Army knife employment. He sees Matt Duffy refusing to go away, Colin Moran ascending, first base fully overloaded, and the three F's (Scott Feldman, Doug Fister and Fiers) vying for the final two rotation spots. But the skipper doesn't have to freak out about anything because, right now, everyone is certain these Astros are going to be really good and have already won the world title for fun.

What, me worry?

"My biggest concern is getting through the next two weeks healthy and to opening day with a roster that we have a lot of confidence in," said Hinch, who watched his club's World Series odds receive a minor dent when in the same week Lance McCullers and Max Stassi were lost for a brief time.

The new positive: McCullers' delayed start meant more work for no-hitter Fiers.

Thanks to an exotic combination of tanking, spending smartly, rediscovering cheap castoffs, completely reinventing the farm and playing darn good baseball last year, these Astros are in a position they haven't been in a decade.

It's easy to forget they're still ahead of schedule. It's just as easy to get totally carried away and hand them a sparkling crown before they've even done anything.

But you know it's truly going well when Gonzalez has to sneak onto the field, Marisnick looks super cool stuck on the bench, and Tucker can be Bamm-Bamm only in the cage.

"Everybody can't fit on the team. But … it's a good problem," Gonzalez said.

Brian T. Smith is a sports columnist for the Houston Chronicle. He was a Houston Texans beat writer from 2013-15 and an Astros beat writer from 2012-13. The New Orleans-area native previously covered the NBA's Utah Jazz (The Salt Lake Tribune) and Portland Trail Blazers (The Columbian), among other beats. He loves music, books, movies, history, nature, coffee and steak.